An interesting extract from Poch's interview with The Guardian Pochettino said he would focus next month on trying to “take advantage of the English market and add an English player”, together with the drive to promote English youngsters from the academy. But he wants to use January, primarily, as a means to prepare the summer business; to steal a march on rivals, after he felt the club failed to do so last summer. Place your bets: Sessegnon, Barkley, or someone else? ...of course this means Sky Sports immediately talk up how we're looking at Lorient midfielder Matteo Guendouzi - which doesn't in any way sound like they're repeating a transfer rumour from this time last year or anything
Turkwatch If any more proof was needed that the Turkish press make things up as they go along, they're now reporting that we're competing with Man City and Arsenal to sign Trabzonspor midfielder (and Bond villain henchman) Yusuf Yazici - who will no doubt be headed for Werder Bremen instead, because every other Turkish starlet we've been linked with heads for the Bundesliga and, judging by the current table, Werder need a squad overhaul PDQ Kondogbia Watch Yup, we're still being linked with Geoffrey Kondogbia. Yes, the same Geoffrey Kondogbia who is on a season-long loan at Valencia with an option to make the loan permanent, meaning there is no chance of him arriving in January whatsoever. Random Bundesliga Starlet Watch Lastly, we're back to being linked with Hoffenheim attacking midfielder Nadiem Amiri, who surely would dread moving to the Premier League as I can hazard a guess what chants he'll receive due to his Afghan parentage...
Dembele Watch Since we haven't been linked with Celtic Dembele for about six weeks, SkyBet have installed us as favourites to sign Celtic Dembele in January - even though, at least according to the misnomer that is the Scottish Sun, Brighton are the team lining up a bid. Random Bundesliga Starlet Watch Would it surprise anyone to hear we're being linked with Hamburg striker Jann-Fiete Arp, who by complete coincidence has been drawing all manner of lazy comparisons with Harry Kane since the U17 Euros. This link of course has nothing to do with him only signing a two-year contract with Hamburg back in June...
Sessegnon Watch The Mirror are reporting that we've been quoted £20m for Ryan Sessegnon...with an additional £10m for his brother Steven, in other words if we want one we'd have to sign another, as happened with the Walker/Naughton deal or, further back, Andy Reid/Michael Dawson. They;re also stating that, while we would want Ryan to join immediately, we're willing to loan Steven back for eighteen months. Random Serie A Winger Watch A few articles in the past few days have linked us with Fiorentina winger Federico Chiesa, and it's worth noting that his style of play is similar to Lamela's. It's also worth noting that Chiesa signed a five year contract last month, so there's no chance of him going anywhere for less than £50m. Expect to read another couple of dozen articles linking us with Suso by next week.
Left Back Watch As we're going to be linked with every left back under the sun for the next nine months, we're being linked with Benfica's Alex Grimaldo, who sounds an awful lot like he guitarist for a mid 2000s landfill indie band. Of course there's a couple of sticking points, namely Benfica won't be selling cheaply, and about half of the teams in the Champions league knockout stages are also looking at him.
Looking at our assist stats, though, that does seem accurate - Lamela got an assist after coming on against Leicester, but all our other assists are from starters (four each for Eriksen and Trippier, three each for Alli and Davies, and one each for Kane, Winks, Son and Lamela) Or to put it another way, Sissoko's not much of an impact sub, is he?
He's played his 110 games for Barca and now he has to move. It's the rules. 110 for Ajax? Gone. 110 for Liverpool? Gone. 110 for Barca? Sorry Catalans, but it can't be helped.
Random Pacy Ligue 1 Winger Watch There's stories suggesting we'll activate the £7m release clause of Lyon's Ivorian winger/striker Maxwel Cornet, a move which won't draw a single comparison to Clinton N'Jie or Georges-Kevin N'Koudou - nor drive people nuts that his first name is spelled with a single L.
Some actual news...ish today! First there's reports (admittedly coming from the ever-reliable Turkish press...) suggesting that Fenerbahce made an offer to make Janssen's loan a permanent deal, but we turned it down. Secondly, although I'm pretty sure it's come up on here before, there's a widely-repeated comment online saying that Poch sees Ryan Sessegnon more as a winger than a left back, which in theory means that we'd be buying Sessegnon and another left back in the event that Danny Rose is shunted towards the exits. Now while there's an obvious flaw in this theory, namely how we play with wing backs as opposed to wingers, it does allow the media to continue linking us to every other left back in world football. In that regard, I'll bring up my suggestion from a couple of weeks back: Augsburg left back Phillipp Max, who we have been linked to quite a bit in recent weeks, who is best compared to a German Trippier. This makes a lot of sense because a few teams have been deploying someone high up the pitch to mark Trippier so he can't get forward and get in his deliveries like he's been able to do in the previous couple of seasons, but if we had an option of another full back on the other flank who could do the same that would make teams think twice about committing two players high up the pitch to nullify both full backs - which at present they don't really need to do due to Danny Rode's performance not so much blowing hot and cold as blowing goats (I have proof) It would also allow a little more flexibility with our choice of full backs, as then we'd have Aurier & Sessegnon as pacy options Trippier & Max as crossing options Davies as the option who everyone underrates but is actually really, really good - and also a good choice to support Sessegnon if he's played as a winger
Depends, will the headlines read Man Utd to invest in youth while also looking to move on young players whose development stagnated due to lack of playing time?
We'll give you 50p for him, sell Danny Rose to City and nick Sessegnon and his brother with the proceeds. Deal?
